First day of filing for GOP presidential candidates

Petitions were filed Wednesday to place four Republican candidates for president on the Feb. 5 Illinois Republican primary ballot.

Bernard Schoenburg

Petitions were filed Wednesday to place four Republican candidates for president on the Feb. 5 Illinois Republican primary ballot.

The campaigns represented in a short line outside the State Board of Elections when filing began at 8 a.m. were those of John McCain, Mitt Romney, Fred Thompson and Ron Paul.

The candidates whose petitions were filed at 8 a.m. today will participate in a lottery for top ballot position.

Other GOP candidates are expected to file within the eight-day filing period. One prominent candidate not represented Wednesday was Rudy Giuliani.

“We’re going to file sometime next week,” said David Dring, spokesman for Illinois House Republican Leader Tom Cross of Oswego, who is state chairman for Giuliani. “We just want to bolster our numbers” of signatures for delegate candidates.

“We believe that we have the most qualified and most politically visible delegate slate, and we want to show that with large numbers when we file,” he added.

Clearly, officials of campaigns who did file full slates Wednesday see that differently.

Being ready to file a full slate by the opening of the filing period may not determine the winner, said state Sen. Dan Rutherford, R-Pontiac, who heads the Romney campaign in Illinois, “but it does say something about your organizational skills. … We’re here the first hour to file, and I think that’s a testimony to the grassroots (support) that Governor Romney has here in the state of Illinois.”

McCain forces also filed a full slate, with state Rep. Jim Durkin, R-Western Springs, McCain’s Illinois co-chairman, lauding the “committed group of volunteers who are working very hard.”

State Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, Illinois chairman for Thompson’s campaign, said Thompson’s late entry in the race gave the campaign limited time to collect signatures, so while some delegate petitions were filed Wednesday, other delegate candidates were still collecting extra signatures to ward off any possible objections.

“We’ve achieved a great deal in three weeks,” Brady said, adding that full slates of delegates in some congressional districts weren’t determined until “a couple of weeks ago.”

Joe Becker of Denver, chief legal officer of the Ron Paul campaign, said Illinois delegate and alternate slates will be filed later.

The first person in line Wednesday was Matthew Mau of rural Chatham, a candidate for convention alternate for McCain. He said he sat outside the board’s front door since 10:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“I saw that the Democrats had a good show,” he said of the Oct. 29 opening of filing for Democratic presidential and delegate candidates, as well as hopefuls for a host of other offices, including General Assembly seats and judgeships. “So I’m like, well, maybe the Republicans will have a lot of people as well. So I figured I’d be here first in line. And I was.”

As it turned out, others with petitions began gathering about an hour before the 8 a.m. filing, and only about a dozen people were on hand for that.

On Oct. 29, the line of bipartisan candidates stretched along a sidewalk and around a corner.

The GOP opted for a later filing period for its presidential candidates and delegates.

In addition to the four presidential candidates who had petitions filed, the following candidates for Republican National Convention delegates and alternates filed Wednesday: